Nasir took a horrified look at the Dutch-plated Grand Cherokee that was leaping over the loose surface towards us, and panicked completely.
By this time his gun hand was shaking so much he could barely take aim, but he loosed off three quick, startled shots in the general direction of the jeep. I was standing so close to him when he fired that my eardrums seemed to explode.
More by luck than by skill, his first shot hit the windscreen. It bloomed instantly into an opaque mesh of fracture lines, radiating out from the point of impact like ripples.
The second two shots cracked harmlessly overhead, way high.
As soon as the first round struck, the Cherokee’s wheel was wrenched over, with the driver’s side furthest away from us. It skated to a halt and I saw the door fly open.
Sean came out hard and fast, moving straight into cover. Even if Nasir had his nerve intact, he would have to have been at marksman standard to have stood half a chance of hitting him.
I took the opportunity presented by this new distraction to dodge forwards, stepping quickly in to Nasir’s body and wrapping my arms round his right hand. I locked on to his wrist with a tenacity that Friday would have been proud of, and dug steely fingers into the nearest available pressure points.
With hindsight, it was a damned stupid move. Tackling someone who’s pointing a loaded gun at you, I mean, but the whole thing had a surreal quality about it. Any moment the unseen director was going to shout, “Cut!” and we’d all go off to grab a coffee together before the next take.
As I twisted my fingers, Nasir’s grip on the weapon started to loosen, which would have worked out just fine, had Roger not realised what was happening. He gave a kind of strangled scream and jumped me, landing a vicious punch in my kidneys.
My legs buckled. I let go of Nasir’s hand, and went down on my hands and knees. He jumped away from me and I looked up to stare straight into the muzzle of the FN, only a few feet away.
I could see Nasir’s face beyond the wobbling barrel, watched as he screwed up the courage to pull the trigger while he still had the time to do it. At that range, there was no way he could possibly miss.
“Roger!” Sean’s voice suddenly yelled out from somewhere behind the Cherokee, making all of us jump. “What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?”
“Just stay out of this,” Roger shouted back desperately. His voice gave way, close to tears, as he flicked his gaze back to Nasir, and then to me. “You don’t understand,” he cried. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“Leave you alone to become an accessory to murder, you mean?” Sean gave a harsh laugh. “Oh yeah, sure.” He paused, then added more gently, “Whatever she’s done, Rog, it’s not worth killing her for.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roger told him bitterly. “You don’t know what’s going on round here.”
Nasir glanced to Roger, agitated, and while his attention was off line I brought my hands up sharply, scattering gravel into the boys’ faces. It was never going to do them much damage, but at least both of them jerked further away from me.
At that moment, as though on cue, Sean burst round the front wing of the Cherokee and came charging across the ground between us like an avenging angel. Dressed in black, face set, he was enough to strike terror into an enemy far more resolute than Nasir.
As it was, Nasir got off one wild shot before the FN mis-fed the next round and locked up solid. If he’d been halfway proficient he could have had the blockage cleared in moments and slotted Sean while he was still yards away.
As it was, he rattled fruitlessly at the jammed slide, threw a forlorn, fearful look to Roger, and bolted, taking the useless weapon with him. Roger was only a stride or two behind him.
They took off towards the area to the back of the gym. Sean came thundering past me and there was a deadly intent in his eyes as he followed. The boys were heading for the broken-down wire fencing behind the building. An easy escape onto open ground piled with the rubble of a demolished factory. If they made it that far, they’d be free and clear.
I hauled myself upright and, with more misgivings than I cared to count, I turned and gave chase.
I wanted to find out why Roger and Nasir were so keen on killing me, and if the look on his face was anything to go by, I needed to do that before Sean got his hands on either one of them.
Eleven
As I burst round the corner of the main gym building there was enough ambient light for me to see the boys separate. Sean’s stride faltered, uncertain for once which to follow.
I was about to thank him for probably saving my life, but as he heard me closing he turned fast and made a snap decision. “Go after Roger,” he rapped out. “I’ll take the other one.”
My words of thanks were swallowed quickly. “Roger’s your brother,” I argued, stubborn, as I reached him. “You should go after him yourself.”
His face tightened. People didn’t question Sean’s orders, least of all me. “The other kid may have managed to work out how to clear that pistol,” he said darkly as he started forward again, offering back over his shoulder. “I can take care of myself.”
I opened my mouth to say, “And I can’t?” and then shut it again. Did I really want to persuade him to let me go chasing somebody who was fleeing, scared half to death, and armed?
Instead, I held my tongue as I set off in pursuit of Roger.
Sean’s brother had made it through the tattered wire fence leaving a torn strip of T-shirt behind to mark his hasty passing. The pale cloth flapped feebly as it caught the light, like a pennant. I ducked through the spiked gap and followed, slithering precariously over the rubble under foot. In the darkness it was lethal.
Some months before, the demolition team had brought down the structure of the old factory building behind the gym and then knocked off – permanently, it seemed. In the intervening period the weeds had done their best to camouflage the ruins they’d left behind with tough-stemmed grasses that whipped against my legs as I ran.
Roger had a decent head start on me, but he wasn’t exactly at his peak when it came to physical fitness. He was fading fast, and he knew it. I caught a glimpse of him, dodging clumsily out of sight behind one of the huge piles of broken bricks. He was stumbling as though exhausted and it galvanised me into an extra burst of speed.
That was probably what saved me.
Behind the bricks, I found Roger wrestling with a length of three-by-two that was tethered into the hard-packed ground by loops of rusty wire.
I came hying into view just as he managed to wrench it free, but he had no time to prepare his ambush. His head jerked, and he tried to wrench the timber up more quickly, but his reactions were badly off.
Hesitation would have been fatal, and I didn’t have time to mess around. I shifted my direction slightly, locking my arm out straight to the side. I hit him from a flat run, just about where his collarbones met, putting the whole of my bodyweight and momentum behind my clenched forearm.
Roger’s feet literally flew up in front of him as the top half of his body was snapped back, like he’d just had a belt off the mains. All it lacked to complete the picture was a gentle wisp of smoke and a bad home perm.
It took him a while to think about getting up again and I admit I made no move to help. Instead, I thoughtfully toed the lump of wood so it was well out of his reach, and stood waiting for him to recover enough to take an active part in conversation.
I knew I should have felt guilty about the placing of that punch. I’d deliberately aimed a fraction high, which was malicious at best, and could have been very unhealthy if I’d got it wrong. Then I remembered his urgent commands to Nasir to shoot me, and faced him coolly unrepentant.